at Spurs.
Spurs loss to the previously unheard of Pacos de Ferreira in the opening leg of their play-off for the Europa Conference League, was built on mistakes previous managers have made, hopefully Nuno won’t make them again.
It doesn’t matter what the “first team” does at the weekend, fielding a completely different starting XI, which included the also rans, kids, a new boys, doesn’t work at Spurs, no matter who the opposition is. It never has worked, it never will.
To go with the eleven changes, Nuno also went with a formation change, with a back three. None of it worked. It was just another standard Tottenham omniclusterfuckshambles.
It just looked like eleven players who’d never met before kick off. A defence that didn’t know where the others where, when defending. A midfield that couldn’t string one pass together and a forward line that either isolated or clueless.
The established players failed, miserably in the case of Winks. Doherty and Davies didn’t look like they would regain a first team slot. Lo Celso was hampered by those around him and a lack of playing time. The new boys was a mixed bag. Gil showed some great touches but with no end product, maybe that was because of who else was playing. Romero looked good on the ball going forward, made some tackles but was all at sea with some of the defending, again that was probably down to those around him in the backline. He hasn’t played with them and in the case of some, he’ll be hoping he never does again. At the end he looked fagged out.
He started alongside Carter-Vickers who looked like a player who, though he is the same age as Romero, has had 6 loan moves since 2016, while playing a whole four games for Spurs before this one. If this was an exercise in shop window, it didn’t work. It didn’t work badly. Carter-Vickers was useless and then injured himself, can’t see anyone buying him off that display.
Sessegnon started as a wing-back, then moved up when the formation changed but he looks lost these days. It’s as if Spurs have destroyed all his confidence. It didn’t help him occupying the same space as Gil. But it’s not the player Spurs bought. I imagine cup games will be his main hope this year after saying he’s not looking for another loan.
The kids, well they looked like kids. Scarlett had no service and the rest were deer in the headlights.
The opposition, while looking like Norwich, weren’t that great but were organised and had plan. Keep Spurs at bay and if you get a chance, take it, which just before the break they did.
It started with an inept pass from Winks, he followed this up with an inept challenge, unlike the rest of his inept challenges on the night this didn’t result in a free kick but the ref played the advantage. While he was floundering back to be run away from one ball through the middle had the back three in a panic and their number 11 was through on the keeper to slot home a decent finish.
Winks is now saying he wants to stay and fight for his place. Yeah, because no bugger really wants him and this performance isn’t gonna help matters. Though it might help Nuno make his mind up on future chances. If he wants to win a trophy then leaving Winks at home is your best option.
Will be interesting to see how Nuno approaches the second leg, if it has the same look then we know where this competition features in his thinking for the season.